I was the @Conservatives candidate for Leeds West, I spent five weeks knocking on doors and was repeated told how much @RachelReevesMP did for the area.

Your views are inaccurate and ignorant and your abuse and vile anti-semitism has no place in politics or society as a whole.

— Mark Dormer (@MarkCDormer) December 23, 2019

👏🏼

They didn’t vote for him because he didn’t have enough political nous to say “sorry”. It demonstrated how inept he was.

Exactly, I think Corbyn’s downfall he as so anti-establishment that he was disconnected how it looked to voters on the fence, and as well put in the left supporting press (many articles from the Guardian), he should have actually resigned to give Labour and the country a chance to not have the next 5 years under conservative rule. It’s not only Anti Semitism where he proved too stubborn for office, he refused to condone the IRA.

Imagine if he’d apologised a couple of years ago, he might have won the election, but as a result he got what he deserved and unfortunately the country has to be a victim to his ideological, politically immature selfishness.

Yes, he was useless at dealing with things. Any decent leader would have sorted out the problem very quickly.
– Put processes in place and make them visible (especially to media)
– Apologise for any issues caused
– Ask for any future issues to be highlighted to the leader so he can review that processes are working correctly

Instead of that he skirted around the issue until a few days before election where he sort of apologised in an f’ing Philip Schofield interview of all places.

I am actually not convinced it made much difference to the vote as majority of people don’t actually care (they voted Tory so can’t care) but it did distract many interviews away from what should have been the topics pushed by Corbyn

He apologised last year. He apologised earlier this year. Labour remains the only political party with an actual process to deal with complaints (of all sorts).

Corbyn is a ****, but he’s not racist or antisemitic. This is 100% about Israel, not Jews.

That’s an uncontroversial view held by a sizeable section of the intellectual labour-supporting jewry who think Israel is an apartheid state. – it’s difficult to call them antisemitic as it means calling them self-haters.

Lets separate this out for what it is. I give zero shits about Labour. I think racism and antisemitism are terribad. I don’t think – but can clearly see – that Israel is an inherently racist, violent human-rights abuser and murderous state and our continued protection of it should shame us.

he refused to condone the IRA.

I absolutely refuse to condone the IRA too.

Also, what he said ☝🏼

Corbyn is a ****, but he’s not racist or antisemitic.

Yep, but some of the members are, which was the problem. He didn’t look as though he was dealing with it well and didn’t have the media awareness to even pretend he was.

some of the members are

Evidence for this? You can’t just keep repeating these vile tropes without naming names. Go on, dare ya.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/05/seventy-labour-staffers-give-statements-to-antisemitism-inquiry

he refused to condone the IRA

Even if you use the right word that’s not actually true.

Evidence for this? You can’t just keep repeating these vile tropes without naming names. Go on, dare ya.

Where have you been for the last 3 years. There is loads of evidence of AS crap from members.

Not surprising as just because somebody is a labour member it doesn’t mean they can’t be racist and no party will ever be 100% pure.

Again, the thing that Corbyn failed to portray that it was a minority, it was being dealt with and he was sorry for any issues that his parties members were causing others. He needed more help on how to deal with that aspect handling the media.

Obviously I meant Corybn hasn’t condemned the IRA.

Chevychase, the problem with the way you and many people express their thoughts about the situation in Israel is how it’s worded, and as a politician Corybn has failed at this.

A person might be critical is American politics, so they cite issues with Trump. You might have concerns with the far right in Brazil and criticise Jair Bolsonaro. When a person is accused of being anti-semitic with their views on the situation in Israel, it’s because it’s worded as criticising an entire country rather than the ruling party and their leader.

If you were to say all Americans are racist Mexican haters who support supplying weapons for those to shoot school children for fun and they don’t deserve to exist, you would be xenophobic. Somehow wording it this way about Israel is not seen as racist, but it is.

he refused to condone the IRA.

Freudian Slip?

I meant Corybn hasn’t condemned the IRA.

Right word but still incorrect.

Still talking about IRA and Corbyn? Yawn.

Talk about Maria Gatland and the Tories for a change. You know for evidenced based connection between a Tory and actually being a member of the IRA.

It will also be interesting when a new Labour leader is selected (assuming they have no anti Israel history and no talking to terrorists at any point) how much of an issue there will be for Labour in the future. I would imagine very little.

@solamanda – I roundly condemn this in the strongest terms as emotional unevidenced bull:

Chevychase, the problem with the way you and many people express their thoughts about the situation in Israel is how it’s worded, and as a politician Corybn has failed at this.

Tell me exactly how there is a problem with the “wording” of this, which is what you’ve responded to:

Israel is an inherently racist, violent human-rights abuser and murderous state and our continued protection of it should shame us.

…

Explicit condemnation of Israel. Not a whiff of antisemitism.

The problem isn’t the way that the vast majority of people word their criticism of Israel – it’s that there’s a powerful, well-funded, pro-Israel lobby that are doing their level best to (with incredible success) conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. And it means large swathes of our population aren’t able to hold an adult discussion about the horrors that Israel inflicts – so Israel gets away with it.

Antisemites exist. Big deal. That’s a totally separate issue.

Yep, but some of the members are, which was the problem. He didn’t look as though he was dealing with it well and didn’t have the media awareness to even pretend he was.

He could hardly have handled it worse from a PR point of view other than maybe saying ‘yeah, so what?’.

At best he showed complete indifference to the whole issue, at worst tacit approval. He was strung up by his own indifference, provided his own noose and tree and all the media had to do was pull…

He was a walking PR disaster from start to finish.

Israel is an inherently racist, violent human-rights abuser and murderous state and our continued protection of it should shame us.

May be better to say “the government of Israel” rather then just “Israel” which implies the people living there are human rights abusers and murderers. While they are largely complicit by electing who they do they can’t all be called that.

Israel is an inherently racist, violent human-rights abuser and murderous state and our continued protection of it should shame us.

May be better to say “the government of Israel” rather then just “Israel” which implies the people living there are human rights abusers and murderers. While they are largely complicit by electing who they do they can’t all be called that.

That is not the way people talk about countries. I’m not saying I agree with what chevychase has said, but it was clear what he meant.

He could hardly have handled it worse from a PR point of view other than maybe saying ‘yeah, so what?’.

go on then, tell us how he could have handled it and got a favourable reaction from daily fail, murdochs climate deniers, the express, the barclay brothers gammons utd. They found a stick to beat him with and there was nothing he could say or do would stop them beating.

Absolutely clear:

Israel is an inherently racist, violent human-rights abuser and murderous state.

Not even ‘Israelis are murderous arseholes’ (which still isn’t antisemitic as not all Israelis are jews any more than all the brits are christian) – but explicitly state.

Get yer heads out of your arse. It IS the ‘way people talk about countries’ – just not Israel, because they shout “JEW HATER” at anyone who even hints at criticism.

The problem the Labour Party has with antisemitism is exactly the same as the problem UEFA has with racism

They both have a glaringly obvious problem with it, but neither express any remotely serious intention to acknowledge it, let alone address it

So in the same way that when black players are faced with monkey chants, UEFA shrugs and issues the offending team with some cursory, derisory fine, and considers the matter done, Jeremy Corbyn did the same as Jewish labour MPs are hounded out of the party and the Corbynista’s pile in with vile, abusive antisemitism online. As well as their misogynistic sexism of course – it all goes hand in hand.

All with total impunity as ‘the leadership’ demonstrates their collective disinterest in the whole subject.

Failure to address the issue properly is basically just a tacit endorsement. A nod.

Carry on…

Move along now… nothing to see here

Chevychase have a +1.

Sorry, haven’t the thread but it’s the internet so here’s my take. Israel is a Jewish state, any criticism of Israel is a criticism of Jews and therefore anti-semitic. So, to be pro-semitic (is that a thing?) you have to be in favour of Israeli troops shooting stone throwing Palestinians, or the settlement of occupied lands, etc, whilst condemning anything the Palestinians do.

Then you’ve got the chief rabbi congratulating his “long standing friend” on becoming leader of the Tories whilst at the same time condemning Labour as being anti-semitic and the whole lot being repeated by the right wing Tory supporting press. Really??

Hey @chevychase have a +2

There is no more a problem with anti-semitism with the membership than the general population at large.

It’s a red herring in terms of a practical debate. Designed to keep the attention away from the Tories.

Noam Chomsky (whom I consider slightly more of a heavy weight than some of the tabloid analysis…) has just done a decent interview on this subject.

It’s just another reason to take apart Labour. The report is disproportionate to the issue; certainly when compared to other types of racism.

It feels like Labour take all the flak for everything they stand for these days which is repeated ad infinitum without scrutiny and it’s a wonder why they don’t get elected. People like Jonathan Freedland quite clearly have an agenda to use this a battering ram. This is despite the fact they are by far the most socially progressive party we have.

Absurd.

It feels like Labour take all the flak for everything they stand for these days which is repeated ad infinitum without scrutiny and it’s a wonder why they don’t get elected

That has always been the case and that is exactly why you need to be better at dealing with it. Corbyn and his current advisors were clearly awful at dealing with it. I could seriously have done a better job in the interviews.

go on then, tell us how he could have handled it and got a favourable reaction from daily fail, murdochs climate deniers, the express, the barclay brothers gammons utd. They found a stick to beat him with and there was nothing he could say or do would stop them beating.

I would use data. Data was very lacking throughout all of this. Number of cases raised, number of cases dealt with, elapsed time in dealing with each case until resolution etc,.
Assuming any plan to tackle it worked I would then be able to show a decrease in number of cases along with a higher speed of response and resolution. I could also then do a comparison with labour party members versus general population, tory party etc,. to show that Labour had a lesser problem than elsewhere.

I would use data

how well does data work with the right wing press and anthropogenic climate change ?

They used data, they apologised repeatedly over 18 months, they’re they only party with a formal process, the leader was a lifelong anti-racist campaigner (incompetent, yes, but not a racist).

Labour went to extraordinary lengths to combat this, but data or apologies (multiple explicit apologies were ignored) were going to do nothing – and indeed could never do anything.

Antisemitism is an emotional rallying cry to the voting public – a bedrock of shit which other shit can be piled on to justify disliking a candidate or party regardless of the arguments they make. Nothing Corbyn could do, ever, could stop those accusations. Ever.

When we talk about the United States politics being paralyzed ny their powerful Israel lobby you can now see it here. It’s always been here – but we’ve never had a pro-palestine candidate at the helm of an electable party before.

It’s a **** joke – and shame on those of you who’ve fallen for it.

Sorry, haven’t the thread but it’s the internet so here’s my take. Israel is a Jewish state, any criticism of Israel is a criticism of Jews and therefore anti-semitic. So, to be pro-semitic (is that a thing?) you have to be in favour of Israeli troops shooting stone throwing Palestinians, or the settlement of occupied lands, etc, whilst condemning anything the Palestinians do.

I assume then, that you consider being pro Christian or Pro British to mean in favour of killing brown people in the Middle East?

Because not all Jews hold the same opinion about the direction of the Israeli state.

Oh and I agree with Binners et al, the evidence for labours antisemitism
is quite clear – and the people who deny it are always the ones that without fail, make anti-semitic comments like the one quoted above.

@raybanwomble – I think you failed to comprehend the meaning of that post.

Context. Don’t take that bit in isolation.

Context is all…

They used data, they apologised repeatedly over 18 months, they’re they only party with a formal process, the leader was a lifelong anti-racist campaigner (incompetent, yes, but not a racist).

Well I didn’t see it so they didn’t do a great job of presenting it did they?
Did Corbyn mention the they have had 673 cases since April 2018 (who many people were actually expelled) and that was 0.1% of the members in any of his interviews?
Did Corbyn apologise at any time prior to the Schofield interview? Again I didn’tsee it if he did.

Labour went to extraordinary lengths to combat this, but data or apologies (multiple explicit apologies were ignored) were going to do nothing – and indeed could never do anything.

Simply not true. Corbyn did not go to extraordinary lengths at all, he fact he completely screwed it up in all the interviews I saw him in (which is pretty much all of them). I notice you keep saying Labour did this, Labour did that. They may well have done things but Corbyn didn’t which i the problem here, it appeared HE wasn’t in control of it or portraying the scale of it or what HE was doing about it.
And remember, I actually like Corbyn for his integrity and what he stands for and I agree they don’t have an AS problem. That doesn’t mean he didn’t make a complete hash of being a leader over the last 2 years though…

Corbyn is a ****, but he’s not racist or antisemitic.

I, like most people don’t think Corbyn is anti Semitic, but the investigation by the ECHR isn’t about Corbyn (or any other individual for that matter), it’s about whether the Labour party as an institution is. Like the Lawrence inquiry into the the Met when it found that it was Institutionally racist. It’s not about individuals it’s about whether the party as an institution has policies or acts in a way that disadvantages Jewish members.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (not European Court of Human Rights) that Labour set up in the first place, you mean.

I’d be astonished if it found against labour. Especially as they have instituted a process.

There’ll be criticism, of course, but at least they have an auditable process – unlike other parties that aren’t even being audited.

Yup. A big part of what Corbyn failed to deal with was the ridiculous double standards- Tories insisting Labour sign up to the IHRA definition when the Tories hadn’t themselves frinstance. Or the current absolute fiasco of the Tory islamophobia “enquiry”. He did try- the constant “we reject all forms of racism” frinstance- but he always did it in a way that could only work if everyone involved was actually fairminded and open, which of course was daft.

Video of Corbyn not being antisemitic

Another 13 year old video emerges. This time Jeremy Corbyn condemning the antisemitism of British newspapers against Jewish Refugees to England. I promise you this. No British TV News programme will ever show you this footage. https://t.co/whAMUtfwj2

— Tory Fibs (@ToryFibs) December 7, 2019

It’s speeches like that that made me really like JC. It’s his singular failure to make (or at least project into the public domain) any speeches like that in the last few years that made me despair of him.

No place for gentle, reasonable, nice people at the top of politics. Loud and nasty always overwhelms and grabs public attention.

Jonathan Pie for PM?